Assad Met Putin at Sochi

Syrian President Dr. Bashar al-Assad met on Thursday 17 May 2018 at Sochi his Russian counterpart Mr. Vladimir Putin in the presence of Russian ministers of foreign affairs Lavrov and defense Shoygu.

At the opening of the meeting, Russian president congratulated Dr. Assad for the holy month of Ramadan and the big advances the Syrian Arab Army achieved in the war on terror. Mr. Putin praised the efforts of the Syrian soldiers for the latest very important moves in the last period to enforce the legitimate authority in the country.

Mr. Putin emphasized on the important areas recently cleaned from terrorists and eliminated the threat against the Syrian capital Damascus, which in his views paved the way for the infrastructure reconstruction efforts in the country.

The Russian president stressed on the need of resuming the comprehensive political course thanks to the latest military achievements. Mr. Putin also praised the recent progress in the Astana talks and the Syrian National Dialogue conference held at Sochi.

Mr. Putin wants to mutually move towards the reconstructing of the Syrian economy and to continue the humanitarian aid to people in need. He mentioned his country’s efforts to involve all concerned parties in this ‘complicated field’ including the United Nations and the UN envoy.

Syrian President Dr. Bashar al-Assad on his part congratulated Putin for commencing his renewed constitutional term, and stressed ‘the results of the latest elections is evidence of Russian people’s agreement with the domestic and foreign policies followed by Mr. Putin, which gives Russia an ever-growing position on the international arena.’

Dr. Assad explained that since the two president’s last meeting a few months ago at Sochi there have been a number of positive changes, especially the progress in combating terrorism, where the terrorism battlefields in Syria have shrunk considerably, and just within the last few weeks hundreds of thousands of Syrians returned to their homes and millions are on the path to return, which means more stability which in turn is a gateway towards a wider political processes that started several years ago.

Dr. Assad thanked the Russian Aerospace Forces which had a significant role in combating terror in the past few years.

Russian President Mr. Vladimir Putin excited to receive the hero in the war on terror Syrian President Dr. Bashar al-Assad

From SANA: At the end of the talks, President Putin gave a press statement saying “During the meeting that we held today, we have discussed the coming joint efforts concerning the continuation of combating terrorism in Syria and tackled that successes and victories achieved by the Syrian Arab army in its war against terrorism and restoring stability to the country.”

“In this regard, President al-Assad affirmed that he will send a list that includes the names of candidates to the membership of the committee on discussing constitution in the list of the Syrian government as soon as possible to the UN, and Russia welcomed this decision and supports it,” President Putin added.

He went on to say “We affirm that with the achievement of the big victories and the remarkable successes by the Syrian Arab army in the fight against terrorism and with the activation of the political process, it is necessary for all foreign forces to withdraw from the Syrian Arab Republic territories.”

President al-Assad, for his part, said “our meeting today was very fruitful as we evaluated, in the beginning, the military situation and the evaluation was positive in regards to what has been achieved in the process of combating terrorism, particularly the impact of these military operations on returning the situation to normal, so, returning the citizens to their homes.”

“I wish to thank President Putin and the Russian government which continued, during the phases of the crisis, offering the humanitarian aid to the Syrian citizens who have left different regions because of terrorism,” President al-Assad said.

The President went on to say that “we also discussed economic cooperation, particularly the increasing investments of the Russian companies in Syria lately and the possible steps to push more companies to invest in Syria and take part in the reconstruction process.”

“We have also evaluated the political process during the latest months, particularly after Sochi conference,” the President said.

On our part at Syrianews, we see this last meeting as one more step towards combining efforts between the two nations to fight Western and Regional-sponsored terror, especially that Syria has been at the front-line of the global war on terror which saved Russia from combating it in its own cities. Syrian Arab Army has killed tens of thousands of terrorists, tens of thousands await extermination, many of them came from Russian territories. We hope the number of visits that Dr. Assad has paid to Russia since the beginning of the Syrian crisis is enough for Mr. Putin to consider Syria more than a circumstantial client as Mr. Putin has complained previously that Dr. Assad visited the West more than he visited Russia in the years previous to the Syrian Crisis.

Since the beginning of the Syrian Crisis, Mr. Putin has ‘state’ visited multiple times each and every country in the enemy camp of Syria, and each neighboring country to Syria signing and offering massive aid and increasing economic ties with each of the countries involved in arming terrorists in Syria. He even offered to sell latest air-defense systems like the S400 to countries in the enemy camp of Russia itself, while withholding the older versions of these weapons the S300 which Syria bought back in 2010 just to please Mr. Putin’s ‘Western Partners’ and of course ‘Netanyahu of Israel’.

We strongly believe that Mr. Putin when he called on foreign troops to leave Syria, it was a slip of a tongue and that he was referring to foreign troops uninvited officially by the Syrian state, and not bowing to his ‘Western Partners’ and Israel’s demands of the withdrawal of any Iranian advisors or Hezbollah fighters from the country. Those were not only invited by the Syrian state like how the Russian military was, but they also have mutual defense pact signed like in the case of the Iranian advisors, and the blood-brotherhood between the SAA and the Lebanese Resistance Hezbollah Movement.

Russia during the past few years of the Syrian crisis has learned much more about the Syrian culture and way of thinking. They’ve learned on how to deal with the Syrians as peers and not similar to how they were dealing with countries and provinces where the Russian Army operates. The Syrian rejection of a Russian proposed Constitution draft for Syria was one of those lessons, the Syrian rejection of any role of western-sponsored terrorists in controlling the country, whatever the sacrifices were, was one more lesson. Syria rejected every attempt by Western powers to control any part of it during the times where over half a million US and UK soldiers were in Iraq, and was already coping with a 2 million Iraqi refugees influx without any proper aid from any international organization, at that time there wasn’t even any Russia regionally let alone internationally.

The positive contribution of the Russian military in the Syrian war against terror has granted Russia a much-needed role on the international stage and raised its posture among the world’s superpowers, something the West is not capable of digesting yet. We just hope the Russian politician brass will realize the value of the contribution of their military and not sell it for some cheap fake carrots offered by their ‘Western Partners’, that the West will take back at the first sign.